5. Kitty discusses her future with her father. Comment on the change in her attitude to him.
6. Dwell on the closing paragraph of the novel. Is it optimistic? Do you find Kitty's ideas of the future convincing?
IV. Questions for analysis and discussion
1. Why was it necessary for Townsend to degrade Kitty in order to regain his conceit? Was his victory final? Most English critics were shocked by Kitty's relapse and attacked the author for it. Maxwell Anderson, an American critic, called this turn of the novel a masterstroke. Why this difference of opinions? Do you agree with Anderson?
2. What moral lesson did Kitty's relapse teach her? What change in her attitude to people did it evoke?
3. What evolution did Kitty's opinion of Townsend undergo? Which phrase of hers summed him up?
4. When Kitty spoke with Townsend and, later, with her father, she managed to shock them. What exactly did each of them find shocking? Was it Kitty's choice of words or the subject of the talk?
5. How do you picture Kitty's future?
ASSIGNMENT 10
Discussion of the Novel
I. Revise the active vocabulary.
II. Enumerate the personages of the novel. Specify the dynamic and the static ones. Group them into the major characters and the minor personages. Point out those who may be considered the author's mouthpiece.
III. Discuss Kitty as the protagonist of the novel.
IV. Answer the questions:
1. What was Kitty's social background? In what way was she brought up? To what extent is she the product of her environment?
2. Can Kitty be regarded as the modern woman? What essential qualities does she lack? What are the essential features of the modern woman, in the author's opinion? Where and how does the author give to understand that the modern woman still belongs to the future? Is loose feminine morality part of the past or of the future, according to the author?
3. In what spheres of life does Kitty look for a meaningful pattern of life? What patterns does the line Walter — Townsend —the nuns —the Manchu offer? Why does Kitty 
reject each of the patterns? Which of the patterns proves the most difficult for Kitty to reject?
4. What stages does Kitty's spiritual evolution pass? Why does it go hand in hand with her estimation of Townsend and adultery, and her self-estimation?
5. Kitty is considered a worthless philistine and there is a denial of her spiritual evolution or progress. Do you agree with it? Can you regard Kitty as a positive character?
6. What is the main idea of the novel?